


Cold Weather Friend

by Icon_UK



Category: New Mutants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 04:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15355767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icon_UK/pseuds/Icon_UK
Summary: This piece is based on an absolutely beautiful piece of artwork I commissioned from Leigh Wortley, whose work (and affection for Warlock and Doug)  I cannot recommend enough.http://leighwortley.tumblr.com/





	Cold Weather Friend

One of the things not in the “Welcome to Xavier’s Academy” orientation pack that Doug had received on his first day on campus was any mention of the local weather, and the pack had included sections on everything from the correct form of address should one happen upon the Majestrix of the Shi’ar Imperium on the school grounds, to the proper etiquette for teleporting into a schoolmates private quarters.  
  
It was his new friends who had warned him about the Xavier microclimate.  
  
He’d given them his, by now trademark, “Really?” expression. Xavier’s was less than ten miles from his old school, how different could it be?  
  
The answer was, of course, a lot.  
  
In her day, Ororo Monroe, the X-Man known as Storm had effortlessly commanded every sort of weather you could name, and whilst normally she was scrupulous about not messing with local weather patterns, or at least arranging things so that the patterns were moved BACK as soon as possible, there had been occasions when she’d had to react rather than plan, and as a result weather around the Xavier School had a tendency to be… eccentric.  
  
Ororo (and the part of Doug’s brain that he had come to realise was linked to his translation powers supplied the word Beauty, in at least one Kenyan dialect) no longer had her powers, but there still seemed to be something screwy with the weather around the school. Most people didn’t talk about it in case it caused her painful memories, but some of them had noticed.  
  
So Doug shouldn’t have been surprised when he went for a morning walk before class, to find that what had been a fresh but sunny autumn morning was now more than slightly chilly… to the extent he could now see his breath fogging in front of his face and he shivered within his thin, not-as-adequate-as-it-had-seemed-a-couple-of-minutes-ago, sweater.  
  
Kitty Pryde had told him that it was advisable, every now and again, to be alone for a little while, to put the outlandish facts of being affiliated with Charles Xavier and his mission in their proper perspective. She did it herself, her “outsider days” she called them. It had seemed like good advice, so he thought he’d try it too.  
  
“Selffriendcypherdoug!”  
  
Well, so much for THAT plan. He turned to see his fellow student Warlock hopping towards him from the grounds around the school, his black and gold form currently looking like a seven foot rabbit. Either Warlock had been reading cereal packets again (Who knew Sam Guthrie would be such a glutton for Trix?), had been watching “Harvey” again, or had been on one of his impromptu nature walks.  
  
Doug had quickly given up trying to get Warlock to call him “Doug”, it was just how Warlock’s language defined his worldview; “Self” and “Not Self”, “Friend” and “Foe” and the rest were equally informative prefixes and suffixes, he used them as metatex… he stopped himself. Class was out of session for the moment, and he could stop analysing languages if he wanted to.  
  
Warlock was perhaps the most fascinating person/being Doug had ever imagined, nothing about him stayed constant, and yet he was always unmistakably himself. A mere three months go, Doug would not have imagined being able to even think that last thought, now it was second nature.  
  
“Wait for self, Selffriendcypherdoug!” was followed by distinct “BOING!” sounds as the rabbit bounded along after him.  
  
Warlock’s voice sounded electronic, filtered, but never sounded entirely synthetic, he sounded a bit like Sparky’s Magic Piano most of the time, or any one of a dozen robot voices Doug had heard on television or seen at the movies, and yet, it didn’t sound quite like any of those.  
  
It had taken Doug a little while to work out what sounded odd about his friends voice, until he realised that it was the voice of someone who didn’t need to breathe, who didn’t even have lungs. Humans take a breath before speaking, and pause when they need to breathe as they converse, but people just edit out those little gaps as they hear them. Warlock just kept right on talking from beginning to end, it sometimes made listening to him a little exhausting.  
  
“Salutations Selffriendcypherdoug! Is self functioning satisfactorily?”  
  
“Hey, Warlock! Yes, fine thanks, and a good morning to you too. Just taking a walk. Clearing my head. You?”  
  
“Self has spent friendsleeptime examining local life forms. Is selffriend aware of at least four thousand eight hundred and seventeen species of life in area designated Xaveierschool? Most are segmented hexapods! Shall self approximate appearance of them?”  
  
“Bugs, Warlock, we call them bugs… well, insects is the proper name (Insect. Insecta, from Latin “insectum”, a calque of Greek “entomon”, English “Cut into sections”). And thanks, but no, I don’t think I need to see giant bugs at this time in the morning.” Doug shivered suddenly.  
  
“Self perceives that selffriend is not at optimum body temperature for human comfort.”  
  
“It’s nothing ‘Lock, just a bit of a chill in the air.” As he said that he realised that snowflakes were starting to fall in the immediate vicinity. Xavier’s Wacky Weather strikes again.  
  
“This does not conform with selfs studies of human physiology and comfort. According to visual media,,,”,  
  
Oh Lord thought Doug, he’s been watching TV again. This could lead ANYWHERE.  
  
“… reduced temperature and atmospheric crystallised water requires warm clothing, often decorated with stylised depictions of quadrupeds with pointed cranial adornments”  
  
“Reindeers”, Doug automatically translated to himself…  
  
“Heated chocolate-flavoured beverages are also a statistical probability, as is communal singing around ornately decorated arboreal growth”  
  
Ah, so Warlock had been watching Christmas specials… where on Earth would he have seen THOSE, give it was only September? Then he reminded himself that this was an alien who could actually BE his own satellite dish. He prayed that Warlock had either filtered out the adult channels, or had simply not understood them, because he was not prepared to have THE TALK with a technorganic alien, possibly of a gender which there was no human equivalent for… he’d rather leave THAT particular joy to Professor Xavier.  
  
With a soft but insistent sound that made Doug think of rainsticks, the rabbit shape shifted, the black-etched-with-gold substance that was Warlock’s flesh (it might look like metal, but if asked to name what it felt like, the best Doug would have been able to come up with was “warm”) stretched into a new configuration; a long looping, snake like form. Warlock’s head manifested a grinning face as he spiralled around his friend, who wasn’t quite sure what to do… or what Warlock was about to do.  
  
“If selfsoulfriend will not wear proper winter attire, the self will be proper winter attire!”  
  
With that, he looped a length of himself around Doug’s neck, shifting shape, texture and colour to resemble nothing so much as a knitted scarf, and Doug had a sneaking suspicion a woolly hat would be following suit. The pseudo-wool felt warm to the touch too…  
  
“…Thanks buddy. So… self _soul_ friend? eh”  
  
“Affirmative. Selfsoulfriendcypherdoug risked lifestatus to offer lifeglow to self. Acknowledgement required. Self has decided on honorific.”  
  
Doug smiled, and was grateful the cold would hide his blush. If Kitty got some value out of her “outsider days”, then good for her… as for himself, maybe he hadn’t reached the point where he needed one just yet. If the choice was spending time discussing life with a shapechanging alien who was already his best friend, or isolating himself for the sake of some navel-gazing then there wasn’t really much of a choice as far as he could see.  
  
As Doug walked on, chatting amiably with a being from the other side of the galaxy, he settled his selfsoulscarf snugly around his shoulders and didn’t even make a mention as he felt a woolly hat start to form on his head. Well, it WAS snowing.


End file.
